Edmas 2010, Part 3: Little Drummer Boy

Track Three of Four. File this carol under the “inevitable” category. I’ve been a drummer for over 13 years (as of this post), so it’s a given that I would eventually take on “Little Drummer Boy” one of these years. There were a few good places for jokes, and I couldn’t resist – like, say, pretending to be Joseph and grumbling about frankincense during the first verse. And, of course, you know what’s going to happen right after the line “I played my best for him”…

“Little Drummer Boy” was the surprisingly difficult tune of this year’s batch. The tricky part with this one lies in its structure – in the “arrangement” (read: piano reduction) I found, the vast majority of the chord changes happened in the middle of a measure, not at the beginning. I threw in two extra beats at the end of each verse, kinda for balance but also just to be a jerk. Either way, it was quite a bit of work but completely worth the effort. Enjoy and amble on back next week for Edmas 2010’s “thrilling” conclusion.